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jrepin sends this excerpt from an opinion piece at OSNews:
"Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia — but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality."

You can't have free-market capitalism though - because capitalism concentrates wealth and power, monopoly, aka fascism/dictatorship, is always inevitable. The free market is a mythical land where companies compete on the merits of their product, rather than the size of the budget they have available for marketing, lobbying, and mercenary private security forces.

The best you can do with capitalism is try to keep it in check. The worst... well, it's beginning to look like the worst is coming.

I have yet to see a nation or government take the official stance that Occupy are terrorists. Squatters, freedom-of-speech-abusers, illegal encampments, yes, but not terrorists.

Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities

While I decry the NDAA and SOPA as much as anyone, I'll not buy into the Occupy claims of victimization and persecution when they squatted for TWO MONTHS before the police were sent in to clear them out. You have a right to protest, to share your ideas, and to educate the public. You do NOT have the right to squat in public spaces until the world does things your way, or we'd still have grey-haired hippies camped out all across the nation demanding that you "free the weed."

I certainly won't buy any paranoid claims that they're going to be locked up as terrorists.

And now that I've finished reading the article, I realize it says NOTHING about Stallman's software ideals. It's a misleading title for a rant piece that has nothing to do with software freedom.

It also conveniently neglects the fact that most of the internet infrastructure affected by SOPA is run on open source implementations, so the freedom of the software has done NOTHING to prevent governments from trying to abuse it.

How they make a connection from Stallman to the NDAA is completely beyond me. They certainly don't explain why they're related in the article.

It also conveniently neglects the fact that most of the internet infrastructure affected by SOPA is run on open source implementations, so the freedom of the software has done NOTHING to prevent governments from trying to abuse it.

Since when did Cisco open-source Cisco IOS? Or Juniper fully release the source for Junos? (it's "partly FreeBSD-based.") Force5 isn't open-source either, nor is Foundry. None of the routers use ASICs and FPGAs for which the code is open source.

I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single piece of network gear between you and slashdot, or me and slashdot, that is fully under any open-source license (I'll even be generous and exclude proprietary drivers.)

Which is a completely false headline, if you actually read the police newsletter that it references. Even if it *were* true that the London police had classified them as terrorists (which, I repeat, they did not), that's still a far cry from the hysterical "Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities" claim in the summary of *this* article. Geez, people, take a breath between your rants.

So you can only protest if you're polite and informative, and what's more, the people who get to judge whether you've been sufficiently polite and informative are the people who don't want to listen to you in the first place.

RE: "You do NOT have the right to squat in public spaces until the world does things your way, or we'd still have grey-haired hippies camped out all across the nation demanding that you "free the weed." "

Actually everyone has the right to squat in public spaces for as long as they want for any reason. That is, if you support the Constitution.

According to TFA's TFA"The administration also pushed Congress to change a provision that would have denied U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism the right to trial and could have subjected them to indefinite detention. Lawmakers eventually dropped the military custody requirement for U.S. citizens or lawful U.S. residents"

I haven't checked the text of the legislation, but this seems to indicate that it's still only foreigners Bush IV can lock up forever.

Here is the text of the definition that he thought was removed. It wasn't removed, only relocated and modified slightly. Originally the term "individual detained at Guantanamo" was defined in its own section. In the final version of the bill, they moved the definition to a subsection of the section talking about the detainees. You can check the text of the bill inside the link if you don't believe me.

SEC. 1028. REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTIFICATIONS RELATING TO THE TRANSFER OF DETAINEES AT UNITED STATES NAVAL STATION, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA, TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND OTHER FOREIGN ENTITIES.

(e) Definitions- In this section:
(2) The term `individual detained at Guantanamo' means any individual located at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as of October 1, 2009, who--

(A) is not a citizen of the United States or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States; and

(B) is--

(i) in the custody or under the control of the Department of Defense; or

(ii) otherwise under detention at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

So it is established that roman_mir is incorrect in thinking that this section was removed. It follows that he is also incorrect in thinking that Obama forced Congress to remove the section, since the section hasn't been removed.

Finally, it is worth noting that this is merely a definition of what the term "individual detained at Guantanamo" means, and does not authorize any actual detainment. Such definitions are common in legal writing. So even if roman_mir had been right about the definition being removed, it would not have had the implications he is claiming.

Hopefully this makes it clear to moderators and readers alike that roman_mir is completely off base in his statements. In an ideal world, moderators would check the facts for themselves before handing out informative mods, but since that's not happening here, I'll try to make it all concise enough that even the laziest mod can see the truth of the situation.

You are doubling down on your nonsense, the section 1028 is about transfer of existing detainees, and the section 1031 that was removed was about any new detainees, thus your idiotic argument is completely false and you are propagating the same nonsense BS as the MSM wants you to propagate.

they used the Patriot Act against the Occupy Wall Street protestors:). This folks, is why I'm a left wing socialist. And for those of you keeping score Obama centrist leaning to the right (or a liberal without the stomach for a good fight, but same thing really).

The best part of this legislation is you can't bring it before the Supreme Court. You have to have standing to bring the lawsuit but if you have standing it means you are locked away without access to an attorney indefinitely.

socialism = big government is the morondom of a travesty that has been produced in america. no such equation exists in other parts of the world in political literature. socialism basically means ownership of means of production by the people equally. it does not matter how you run those tools of production. you can federalize and localize to hell, or you can collect it all at the hands of one big central government.

you are incorrect. first, increasing decentralization in production and planning reduces need for centralization, naturally. this has been so throughout history. second, with increasing technology, centralization for running complex or large scale operations becomes increasingly unnecessary. you can see this from many technologies on the internet (from filesharing to tor or etc) to systems that run physical production systems that are spread to many countries as a single entity.

however, lets say that even these are not correct, and it is as you say - there is no relevance : central planning and distribution does not mean central planning decides how much of what you need. leave aside that it does not necessarily decide anything regarding your moral or political choices. central planning is just an engineering concept that manufactures demanded goods and services as per the received demand and distributes them to their demandees.

ownership of stuff is the key - everyone has equal share in this. its not the running of the system, but sharing the output of the system.

"So when I get into a car - a computer I put my body into - with my hearing aid - a computer I put inside my body - I want to know that these technologies are not designed to keep secrets from me, and to prevent me from terminating processes on them that work against my interests."

in a veto-proof manner, after Obama had the language softened, and it doesn't apply to any random American, and it doesn't apply to anyone labeled a 'terrorist', only to people associated with specific terrorist groups.

I don't agree with the slippery slope this legislation started, but please, Enough With the Sensationalism.

in a veto-proof manner, after Obama had the language softened, and it doesn't apply to any random American, and it doesn't apply to anyone labeled a 'terrorist', only to people associated with specific terrorist groups.

And who identifies these terrorist groups? And how does one prove they are not a member of these groups?

I'm thinking there's a shit load of annoying activist type people who have the most tenuous link to that shadowy Anonymous terror organization that can now be made to 'disappear' for a short time, if required.

And how does one get to the necessary judicial assistance to prove that you *are* an American once your in the part of the system that says 'no trials, indefinite secret detention'?

Enough With the Sensationalism.

No, more with the sensationalism. It is now the only way people will listen to anything through the rest of the artificial sensationalism.

And if you think that any legislation that brings your country closer to the workings of the soviet empire of old then hand in your citizen papers and continue assuming they wont come for you.

As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.

stallman said this. and it is happening - private corporations and governments are separately and in conjunction trying to control everything.

so far so good, right ? and you are asking, 'what does this have to do with free software', right ?

are you idiots ? what are we turning to, as this trend gets more serious ? software that is free, and uncontrollable, and circumvents any kinds of bans/gateways/filters ? from tor to proxies, to free oses that thankfully run these ? imagine what would have happened if instead of linux, some jacked up windows nt server was the basis for the web at large today ? all it would take microsoft to twist us in the balls would be to prevent certain software (proxy, vpn) from running on their servers with a 'security update' when local governments requested it and voila !

dont at a moment think that 'they wouldnt do that'. they DO that. we have seen endless cases of repression cooperation, user-busting, shady dealings get to news in slashdot and we discussed under their summaries here, altogether. so, dont at a moment dumb down and think they wouldnt - they ARE doing it.

and what would happen if stallman did not come with those 'radical' ideas, and relentlessly pushed for them ? we would be living in a more closed, private internet, and we would have been already grabbed by our balls long ago. At least now, we are on the cliff's edge - with all this sopa and shit. we maybe have a chance.

so wise up. world history has been exclusively changed for the better by radicals in the last 2 centuries. here's another, and he is talking good stuff. the fact that these stuff may be too futuristic or utopic for you, would just put you in early 1900s moron's shoes if you come up and claim that he is nuts. everyone ranging from wright brothers to nikola tesla were dubbed as nuts at some point. even thomas paine, was shamefully labeled as a lunatic. now noone can dare argue against the principles he had spearheaded, in a scientific environment - they have become de facto basis of freedom of scientific thought from dogma and religion.

if you did not know who even thomas paine was, i am wondering what the fuck you were doing in a thread, labeling someone who was a radical visionary, as a nut.

RMS is a technohippie, an archetypical one. The hippies were right about everything:SexDrugsRock & rollVietnam, and war in generalNixon, and politicians in generalCapitalism (as practiced, not as they lie to us in school about it)Religion, and dogma in generalComputersFreedom

That the americans of today are not the americans of over 200 years ago. The ones today really aren't prepared to fight for what is important. They've become fat and complacent, and have no problem bending over and taking it from their government again and again. Despite the fact that they are armed to the teeth, most of them would tire before reaching the end of their driveway and when faced against a modern military using modern tactics, they'd be decimated.

At some point Canada is going to have to man-up, invade, and bring democracy back to the USA.

The problem here isn't that some software isn't free as in dollar cost, or even that it isn't free as in "I have the source code." Either of those -- or both at the same time -- can be malware.

The actual problem (here in the US) is that our government has vastly exceeded its constitutionally assigned authority. Either we fix that, or the problem remains. The constitution sets the absolute limits of legitimate authority, and the 4th amendment is very clear that the government is not authorized to obtain the warrant required to poke into our papers, our domiciles, our person, or our effects unless they (1) have probable cause, (2) supported by oath or affirmation, (3) describing the place to be searched, and (4) describing the person(s) or thing(s) to be seized.

We, the citizens, are responsible for this mess: We have repeatedly let the government step out of line, violating the constitution, accepting virtually any excuse the government handed out like credulous idiots.

We have a chance to throw a monkey wrench in this and at least promote a national dialog on the subject by voting for Ron Paul this time around. Regardless of if you agree with his specific policies, he offers us one critical thing that is more valuable than anything else any other candidate brings to the table: He respects, honors, and will obey the constitution. That means he'll serve as a roadblock against further unconstitutional legislation (which we are obviously in dire need of), limiting what gets through to those bills that can muster enough cross-aisle support to override a presidential veto.

Free software isn't going to save us. Only by putting in place a properly constituted and obedient government can we be saved. And that's going to be a much more difficult road, perhaps an impossible one, if we don't step up to the plate and do something now.

The pundits are right about one thing: time has truly run out. If you read these most recent bills, they are stunning in their overreach, blatant violations of the oaths sworn to uphold and defend the constitution by the lawmakers and any other public official who has supported these bills. This time it isn't just the felons, the people on the various government lists, foreigners, and people who want to fly who are going to get screwed.

Precisely, not only did we allow the Bush administration to set all sorts of new precedents we rewarded him with a second term even after it was obvious that he wasn't going to adhere to the law. Obama hasn't been as bad in that regards, but he definitely hasn't deviated anywhere near enough from the precedents set up in the Bush administration.

Ron Paul is a joke and yes he probably would keep to the constitutional limits, the problem is that he would more or less abolish not just the bad aspects, but the good ones and would in all likelihood shrink the government far more than what is required to bring things back into control.

Ultimately it's a moot point as he would one have to be elected and two convince enough Senators and Congressmen to go along with it, which is unlikely.

Ron Paul is a joke and yes he probably would keep to the constitutional limits, the problem is that he would more or less abolish not just the bad aspects, but the good ones and would in all likelihood shrink the government far more than what is required to bring things back into control.

Translation: Yes, I believe in the constitution of the united states and I will follow its principles unless there is something I want from the government tit that it does not authorise. Then, I will quickly ignore the constitution and ridicule it as out of touch. Because I KNOW BETTER DAMN IT!

Some of what Ron Paul says seems to ignore the idea that the Constitution is not a Suicide Pact. For example, Paul may be right about the constitutionality of the Dept. of Energy, but he hasn't proposed a solution that can be rationally accepted. Just shutting the DOE down means there would be no federal oversight of nuclear weapons when they enter the repair and maintenance process, or of spent nuclear fuel. I too once took that oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I'm damned pretty sure I meant it, than and now, but until Ron Paul can say at least say whether the DOE plants at Yucca Flats, Oak Ridge, and others should be under control of the Fed through some agency (DOE, DOE, or other), or of various state governments, or what his shut down plan is, he hasn't really said anything. I remember classes on how Posse Comitatus itself is a Constitution derived principle which limits the military itself controlling the nuclear arsenal when it's on US soil, off military posts, and I can only wish Dr. Paul would address whether, and just how, he intends to abide by that interpretation as well, because that seems to imply the possibility the guy really plans to abandon control of operational multi-megaton devices. Now, as a loyal Tennessean, if Ron Paul wants the governor to have full control over the disposition of all nuclear weapons currently in state (including any Russian ones Oak Ridge is probably dismantling right now), I guess that's all right, but I'd think come football season Alabama and Georgia might be a trifle nervous about just what the "Vol Defense" now encompasses.
Please understand, Hellbombs get dirtier and dirtier inside just sitting on the shelf. There is not unlimited time to take "Shut down the DOE" from an idea to an actual plan, unless you don't mind putting human workers lives at a vastly increased and essentially unnecessary risk.Even the likely delay from a mere couple of years spent actually debating a plan in congress poses a very real health risk to hundreds of DOE contractor employees. And if your interpretation of the Constitution is that it puts some form of nuclear release authority in the hands of Bill Haslam, well, I'm not sure he even wants it. In fact, I kinda hope he doesn't. By the way, for those of you in states with Democratic governors, Bill's a staunch Republican, and no, most of your states don't have nukes in them. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, well, yes I am, a bit, but I'd point out that ambiguities in the control of the Ex-Soviet nuclear arsenal did occur on just this basis, and the result, according to the CIA for one source, was supposedly that some devices came close to falling into the hands, not just of oddly behaving leaders of some break-away republics, but of actual known terrorist organizations. One of the reasons the US has spent over a decade cleaning up really hot, nastily contaminated Soviet era devices is a period of less than a single year's delay in the ongoing process of maintenance in the collapsing USSR. Do you think we'd do better, with the sort of congress we have now?

Although I am an Australian, we do have a similar problem of unconstitutional government. If you really need the federal government to do something the constitution doesn't allow for (and most would argue that control of nukes should stay with the federal government, not the states) the solution is to amend the constitution, not ignore it.

One of the reasons the US has spent over a decade cleaning up really hot, nastily contaminated Soviet era devices is a period of less than a single year's delay in the ongoing process of maintenance in the collapsing USSR. Do you think we'd do better, with the sort of congress we have now?

Yes, I do. Paul can't do squat along these lines unless he gets congress to go along. Which he cannot do. There's zero risk here. The DOE (and every other department Paul would like to eliminate) exists as a consequence of establishing legislation and an already obtained presidential signature, or a sufficiency of votes to obviate the need. That means that either the courts have to shut the department(s) in question down (not happening) or the legislature has to shut them down (also not happening.) Paul can't do it -- the president has no such authority.

Paul can't make legislation. All he can do is veto legislation, or suggest it -- which is a far cry from actually getting it made into law. The area he can work in and get things done is constrained to foreign policy, war, basically commander in chief stuff. That, and delay legislation if he doesn't like it -- and we know that the metric he will use is "is it constitutional?"

This means congress will not face the questions you lay on the table here; and that in turn means it's a non-issue.

The president could direct the treasury to not allocate funds for unconstitutional uses -- the president can't modify legsliation (including a "line-tem veto"), but he can simply not enforce legislation, if done so in a constitutional manner (keeping within the equal protection of the laws clause and all that). In fact, there is only one thing the executive branch is actually mandated to do, and that's count the number of people in each state every decade. (Unfortunately for Ron Paul, the Federal Reserve funds itself without tax dollars, in fact it was the single most profitable corporation in the world if it were considered one. Ever wonder why it gets the very nicest building in the city?)

On August 4, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Organization Act (Public Law 95-91), centralizing the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission and other energy-related government programs into a single presidential cabinet-level department. The DOE, activated on Oct. 1, 1977, provided the framework for a comprehensive national energy plan by coordinating federal energy functions. The new Department was responsible for long-term, high-risk research and development of energy technology, federal power marketing, energy conservation, energy regulatory programs, a central energy data collection and analysis program, and nuclear weapons research, development and production.

Shutting down the DOE does not mean there is no Federal oversight. It would mean a return to the way it was handled before 1977. We had all of what we have now in the way of nuclear weapons, power & research before it was consolidated.

I am NOT arguing the case either way, just pointing out your premise is totally, factually incorrect.

I have come to the conclusion that it is not the government's fault. I used to blame the government for "overreaching its authority" until we had the incident with the underwear bomber guy. Napolitano come out and said that no one was seriously injured, the attack was thwarted (partly by the people in the plane, yes, but it was thwarted), and that the system was working. Next thing you know there is a huge uproar and demands for the government to make sure nothing like it happens again. Now everyone has to go through the backscatter machines.

The American people love to yell and scream when someone infringes on our (individual) rights. But as soon as our safety is threatened, we are willing to sacrifice our rights (we justify it by saying we are sacrificing other people's rights, that is why the Republicans want to be able to profile muslims, but in the end everyone's get sacrificed) to move our chances of being killed in a terrorist attack from one in a million to one in a billion. The politicians just want to get re-elected. And we are much more likely to re-elect someone who takes away our rights than to elect someone who is "weak on national security".

I know for a fact that "the government" was not even listening to the country when it invented the UAS PATRIOT ACT.

I wrote my congresspeople and explicitly and simply asked them _NOT_ to pass ANY laws or regulations in response to 9/11.

I got back a form letter that said that "in response to my concerns" and the concerns of "likeminded americans" congress was working as fast as it could to assemble and pass legislation to (whatever and so-on).

In short, I got the form letter treatment "assuring me" that they were busy doing _exactly_ what I begged them not to do.

So when politicians invoke the public will as revealed by their correspondence, I tend to disbelieve. They don't read the mail, they sort it by category and subject matter, then _weigh_ it apparently. Then they decide that everybody is demanding whatever the letter on top says, ignoring any letter on top that doesn't match the political bias that the politician has already decided makes him look most re-electable.

It's all crap and it is out of control. Everybody is talking. Nobody is listening. and the game is, bought anyway.

Next thing you know there is a huge uproar and demands for the government to make sure nothing like it happens again.

Where? I don't remember anyone demanding that outside the government and media.

The media is the "fourth estate". It's an arm of the government and crucial to the establishment as we know it today. Most of what appears to be legitimate debate and discourse is actually a method of floating an idea to get people used to what's going to happen anyway. This is the power that comes from the ability to frame information and to decide what information is well-known and spoonfed, and what information is obscure and known only to the minority who will not be deterred by any amount of effort from diligently seeking it.

The GP failed to understand this. He also failed to understand that much of what the media report are official statements that come directly from the government with no critical analysis applied, no bullshit called. Contradictory, self-serving, hypocritical, and nonsensical statements are merely repeated verbatim alongside facts as though all were equally legitimate. That's why he thinks the government is reacting to something other than its own desire and misguidedly places blame on the People.

Some of the People do feel that way and are governed by nothing more than their own fear because they have neither principles nor the guts to back them up when things get tough. The problem is, these are the ones who get national airtime. All the rest have no national media presence and are relegated to the fringe of alternative media. No matter their numbers, they don't have a message palatable to the national media.

Look, ask some of the people who has lived in a country with a civil war, a proper bloody one with armed guerrilla groups and government troops shooting it out what it was like. It's not just that you pick up your gun and go to war and you either win or die. There's chaos, mayhem, terror, looting, raping and plundering - there's no rule of law, no redress of grievances, suspected collaborators and rebels are detained and punished with little to no due process. Okay you might feel your rights are boiling away like frog in warming water, but for a time - a very long time, in some cases - you're likely to have none as desperation takes both those in power and those fighting to change it.

That is why the average person is generally very opposed to a civil war, no matter how righteous the cause. Revolutions only happen when large groups of the people can get behind something, whether it's oppressive taxes (no taxation without representation), mass unemployment (Nazi Germany, hello Godwin), mass starvation (Soviet revolution) or something like that. Not because a handful of people may be taken by the secret police and disappear. That's never been enough for a revolution, not before and not now. All those that whine about the public apathy don't realize how far people were pushed in the past, before the revolution came.

It has to be bad. Not just a little bad, but so bad that a good number of people is willing to sacrifice anything and everything because it can't get worse. And a population that desperately yearns for change, a small number of discontents in a population that has their bread and circus will go nowhere. Make a little show on how they cleared the Occupy Wall Street movement, but they didn't exactly have the tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square. And even that wasn't enough to trigger a revolution. To be honest, I suspect that during an actual civil war 90% of the gun nuts will be hauled up in their property protecting it from looters, not out fighting any revolutionary war. Not really that ready to sacrifice everything after all.

the problem is that he would more or less abolish not just the bad aspects, but the good ones and would in all likelihood shrink the government far more than what is required to bring things back into control.

The president's power is limited to veto (which is a roadblock unless congress can reach a higher degree of agreement than it usually manages... and it's unlikely he would roadblock something that was constitutional on its face) and foreign policy actions (where frankly, I completely agree with his ideas: bring 'em home, close the bases, stop the wars.) The rest of Paul's ideas, at least most of them, good or bad -- he can't implement without the consent of congress, and that means, can't, really. His value is in the military pullback, and the raising of constitutional issues nationally -- that conversation is long, long overdue. There's an opportunity for four years of raising awareness here; or, of course, you can vote for the democrats or republicans again. You already know what that's going to get you. Without lube.

So who would you elect then? Like I said, I don't 100% agree with everything Ron Paul says but he's the best candidate running in 2012. Its hardly cult like to say that out of all of the people running X candidate is the best one.

If you are so judgmental Mr. Anonymous Coward, why don't you voice who you are voting for? And don't say you aren't going to vote (assuming you are American), even if your preferred candidate has no chance of winning at least have the peace of mind knowing that you did your part the best you could.

Because I can choose what corporations (or individuals, or used item venues, or barter events, etc.) I do business with (or not), and how much business to do if I decide to do business at all. I can't choose to do business with the government; they take my money by threat and coercion, they use it for things I would never stand behind, they make laws that force people to do things I would never have them forced to do, and in the end, they set the rules the corporations have to abide by -- and they have done so very poorly. So corporations are definitely quite a ways down the list of my concerns from a government operating well out of its authorized sphere. Getting government into constitutional compliance is far more important. Once there, it would be reasonable to revisit what the constitution allows, and perhaps make a few legitimate changes. Until then, I am not worried about Apple; I am really, really concerned about the federal and state governments.

Exactly, there is no power given to corporations that you don't give to them voluntarily. If I oppose the War in Iraq I can't exactly not fund it, they'd throw me in jail if I refuse to pay my taxes. If I oppose Wal-Mart's hiring practices I can refuse to shop at Wal-Mart and (barring government interference in the economy) Wal-Mart will not get a penny of business from me. If I don't like Facebook's privacy policies, I don't have to use Facebook. If I don't want to buy into the pyramid scheme that is Social Security, I can't opt out of it.

We support the government because of a barrel of a gun. We support corporations based on mutual gain.

Really, you shouldn't make comments about logical fallacies if you don't know what they actually are. There is no argument from authority. He points out the fact that nothing Stallman has said or done would have any effect on the legislation nor on what is being said about the Occupy protesters. He also points out Stallman's obviously poor thinking in numerous things.

It's his claim that we shouldn't listen to Stallman because Stallman is a nut-job. It's a sort of reverse argument from authority, where he claims that the other side is so insane, you should listen to him (he's comparatively authoritative). Stallman's general utter lunacy isn't a legitimate test of the validity of any specific argument he makes.

That's not an argument from authority, that's the definition of an ad hominem [nizkor.org] argument. Instead of attacking the message, you attack the messenger.

For another relatively contemporary example, there are people right now claiming that we should ignore all the economic advice of John Maynard Keynes [wikipedia.org] because he wrote something that might conceivably be construed as anti-Semitic when he was 17.

You can think RMS is a nutjob, but it's quite possible that RMS is a nutjob and also right about the importance of Free Software.

More likely Richard Stallman is a little tired of the speeches and has no real desire to appear in public and thus expresses his discontent with a rather offset sense of humour. Start asking him silly question and his behaviour deteriorates until question time ends. Whilst he supports FOSS he is no a slave to it nor to the ignorance of the majority of users and rather than attacking people he simple takes on a slightly tilted and offensive demeanour to drive people away.

The only people to push Stallman attacks have been M$ in rather pointless retaliation for attacks against Ballmer and Gates. Their reasoning being the use of Ballmer and Gates in M$ marketing being presented as geniuses, which of course made the immediate targets for ridicule and mocking. Thus they reasoned attacks against Stallman and Torvalds would damaged FOSS. Some of the Stallman stuff stuck because it seems he exploited to fend of excessive public appearances. Most of the Torvalds stuff failed no matter how much the M$ marketdroids attempted to twist and exaggerate every public comment he made.

As for trusting closed source proprietary software and interference by a government controlled by the 1%, obviously the two mixed together is a terrible idea. The psychopathic greed of the 1% will twist government to protect themselves and to continue the rape of the planet and the 99%. The question in the digital era is whether we will use technology to bring them down or whether they will use it to enslave us.

You raise an important point. There are two perspectives here and unfortunately, both of them are correct. Stallman's perspective is that computers are so critical that it's unacceptable that users should be prevented from managing their hardware and software 100%. As you note, however, few users are capable of managing their *ware 100%. It follows, however, that unless the user is 100% responsible for managing their *ware, there's no assurance that the responsibility they've delegated isn't being abused.

One can make the same argument about a number of things. My area of interest is food security. Unless one farms and cooks all of one's own food, one must delegate some of one's food security to others - either in the form of grocery stores, restaurants, or a personal chef, to name a few. How many people could really take 100% responsibility of their own food security? Very few, if you ask me. This is the nature of an interdependent society. Specialists develop expertise in narrow fields and then trade services. It's a cornerstone principle of industrialization and technological advancement. Perhaps Stallman IS correct but here is the tradeoff that must be considered then: If we must retain greater responsibility of our computers - possibly up to 100% control - what expertise or efficiency should we sacrifice instead so that everybody can have that level of responsibility?

Disagreeing with Keynes because you have evidence that his theories were flawed is not the same thing as disagreeing with Keynes because he was possibly a bit anti-Semitic when he was a teenager. That line of argument is "Keynes says X implies Y, X happened and Y didn't happen, so Keynes was wrong to say X implies Y". That's different from the ad hominem line of argument I was criticizing, which is more along the lines of "Keynes says X implies Y, Keynes is a bigot, so X doesn't imply Y".

So because his theory was flawed in some respect, we ignore him completely? Does that mean we completely ignore the free-market fundamentalists that failed to predict the current shit storm that the world is going through?

What? We are still run by Keynesians! Where are the free markets? Everywhere you look, there is government involvement in the markets. Government intervention, government bailouts, government funded spending programs, government regulations, government, government, government!

The free market school DID predict the current shitstorm. Ron Paul predicted it in 2002 when they passed the bill that caused the housing bubble. You had Austrian economists shouting at the top of their lungs, trying to warn people about what was coming. But everyone had faith in their "Maestro" and his apprentice, even as their arch-corporatist organization was lowering interest rates to try to reflate the bubble. Rates are still at ZERO for fucks sake! It's like trying to sober someone up by giving them a whiskey enema.

Stallman is a nutjob in enough ways that it seriously calls into question his entire process of judgment.

So? He might still be right. If a guy in an insane asylum believes that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is approximately equal to 3.14159..., the fact that he's in the insane asylum doesn't make him wrong. If you have a young drug-using new-agey hippie from a broken home who comes to you saying he's got a way of making computers that are much better than anything all the established competitors have, and you refuse to work with him because he's a young drug-using new-agey hippie, you may have just missed your chance to make a great investment in Apple.

The worst possible consequence of RMS being wrong is that we'll have freely available software that's not as effective as proprietary software and thus is a bit of a waste of time and money to create. The best possible consequence of RMS being right is that we'll have freely available software that's high quality and allows users to do a lot of stuff with it (so long as they don't take the freely available stuff and try to steal it).

It is possible for someone to be anti-Semitic and to still produce rational arguments on subjects not dealing with Jews. It is also possible that if he was 17, his ideas changed later and he could be rational even about Jews.

But strangely people can be anti-Semitic and have no problem with Arabs, only Jews. Which is really wierd since the average Arab is far more representative of the Semitic racial type than the average Jew (who typically has a lot of European blood in them).

In fact the hatred many Arabs have of Jews is often referred to as 'Anti-Semitic' which is hilarious considering they are of the same race. I've even heard Jews insult one another by using 'Anti-Semite' in the same context that I might use "bastard!", "asshole!" or "cunt!".

The evident hatred of Arabs among many Americans would also be 'Anti-Semitic' but its rare to hear it described as such.

Ie chances of someone who is anti-Semitic also having poor rationality in general seem fairly high. Racism is a bit like conspiracy theoryism; its not so much about unintelligence as about having ones horizons in thought limited or curtailed in some way.

The problem is there are lots of crazy people in the world, and we don't have enough time on this planet to refute every bit of nonsense they spew. Fallacies like the argument from authority or the ad hominem make for bad logical proofs, but they're necessary in day to day life.

I can't prove a square has five corners by insulting your mother, but if the wino on the street corner tells me the end is nigh, I'm not going to bother listening to his arguments. You shouldn't believe me if I say 2+2=5 just because I wave around a diploma, but every time you cross a bridge, you're trusting in the authority of those who built and checked it without bothering to check their work.

If Stallman comes across as a nutjob, no one will listen to him. And why should they? There are tons of nutjobs in the media, and you'd die of old age before you could listen to and analyze everything they had to say.

And idea is something that can be tested, abstracted, projected, compared and conditionally analyzed. regardless of whether an institutionalized 13 year old with down syndrome said it, or a 31 year old prodigal savant with tenure wrote a thesis around it. As far as the basis of a philosophy, that's what philosophy is! You start with a scalable logically constructed concept on which to construct an overall basic logic, and then expound upon into all relatable fields. Stallman believes that anyone capable of making an informed an intelligent decision that does nothing to harm or limit the rights of others should be allowed to do so. This philosophy is the core of the point in the/. introduction of the article.

Wallstreet, for example, has been able to expand its investment opportunities based solely on the short-term expansion of opportunities for others while obfuscating the information for an informed decision, all of which has been made legal due to the commercial nature of the US election process. Much of Occupy Wallstreet is about removing the obfuscation and overall ability to hide or control information, and getting rid of the ability to use the profits from those practices to maintain the legitimacy of that process.

The reason ideas are important, ignoring the love of empiricity that found the Enlightenment that found the United States, is because Ideas Stand Alone. They can be objectively and critically reviewed. If you do that with a human being, having all information available, human beings almost always can be made to look like ignorant and twisted individuals. Everyone has a level of undesirable traits at some point in their lives, and if condensed together, almost anyone could be made to look less than the ideal human being.

However, an idea can be shared by anyone, even entirely abstract computer models, and be tested for validity in someway, or otherwise scaled or planned for when the ability comes about. Take the Other Worlds Hypothesis popular in the Enlightenment, we now possess the Drake equation to allow us to theorize the probability of contact long before we might actually visit one.

While it's true the GGP can't properly format hyperlinks, that doesn't make his conclusions wrong; it just makes him either stupid, ignorant or lazy.

You left out an option. Perhaps he thought he had it right, checked over it twice to be sure, but simply made a mistake anyhow. Happens all the time. This is why two personnel are required to double check tasks in some environments.

There's another option:-

I have made a deep emotional investment in a value based belief - therefore I will distort reality by focussing on irrelevant issues in order to avoid re-examining my core beliefs. eg. It's all about free software (not the reasons for wanting free software)

Gold is where you find it - it's value is not decreased just because it's found in yucky dirt.

Sigh - more unnecessary proof that evolution is a fact, and that it's not horizontal

No, it's not about Stallman, the messenger. It's about why the messenger was right. It's about the message, and how that message's prediction has been shown accurate.

Stallman hasn't been "paranoid about everything". He has been scared of the abuse of people by closed software, and his fears now are being proven justified.

His other views, even on child pornography, are irrelevant to that. Because we're not interested in Stallman; we're interested in what he said that was (and is) right. Because he was among the first to say it, was right about it despite widespread ridicule and even condemnation, and what he's right about is important.

Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.

I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

He's sceptical of the argument against it but he didn't say it should be legal. My understanding is his judgement is reserved and he wants clarification of why it should be illegal.

He's right. But, it showed poor judgement to say as much. The beer swilling, football watching masses don't get nuance. That "as long as" qualifies as nuance for that crowd. Now he's tarred as a pedophile sympathizer for life, at least on the idiot side of the house.

in fact, that same magazine also suggested that child porn be legalized so the real pervs can get their fix and stay in the shadows without victimizing real children ( couldn't find the article, but I did find this [psychologytoday.com] one which acknowledges that the "think of the children mentality is way out of hand ).

Psychology Today is very mainstream, like the CNN of psychology literature, and even they are not afraid to address those controversial things like rape fantasies and the fact that the "think of the children" appeal to emotion is stale bullshit and way misused. You who are foaming at the mouth at RMS's porn statements are probably fantasizing about your daughters right now - Your selective anger at RMS' statements says more about you than it does him.

If an attractive lady(teacher, babysitter, whatever) approached me when I was 12 and asked me to have sex with her, and videotape it, I would have said, "fuck yeah" - especially if she plied me with a little booze.

Had it been legal, and not required me to undergo degrading medical and psychological examinations, not forcing me to testify in a stressful and humiliating trial, and not forever attaching a stigma of victimhood to me, it would to this day have been one of the fondest days of my life. Where were all those naughty teachers when I was in high school?!

I spent my entire 12th year alive trying to acquire HUSTLER magazines(before the internet was feasible for kids like me), and would have given my left nut for the opportunity to be "victimized" by an older woman.

And suppose two weeks later you found out you had a fatal sexually transmitted disease? Or if you were female, that you were pregnant? We protect the young from adults who would manipulate them for sexual gratification because they don't fully understand enough to protect themselves. If Stallman thinks it's ok to manipulate a child into willingly giving sexual pleasure to an adult, he should have a bullet though his skull.

The more of the world I see happening around me, the more I think this notion of "informed consent" is concocted nonsense. How many grown adults of the legal age are informed enough to make good decisions regarding sex, money, or much of anything else?

The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

Yeees, to a point - although the following couple of paragraphs give some seemingly light hearted and off the cuff justification of incest and necrophilia - he fails to address the pedophilia mentioned by the person he originally quoted.

Come on, he is the archetypal anti-social computer nerd. His humour is ponderous, tasteless and generally not funny. Easily twisted though.

I'm not getting into this argument myself, but here's your cite [stallman.org]... Stallman wrote it on 28 June 2003 (and the poster's paraphrase seems valid, though I doubt the statement represents the full breadth of Stallman's views).

"Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.

The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness."

Richard Stallman also thinks necrophilia// As an Atheist, all he said is "After I'm dead, I don't care what happens to my body, research is my first choice, but necrophilia would be a close second". He also jokes about how he enjoys rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants, AKA: Smelling flowers).

and "voluntary pedophilia" [stallman.org] should be legal, including possession of child pornography.//He's talking about all the cases when somebody goes to jail for fucking a willing 14-15-16-17 years old girl/boy. I wouldn't sleep with someone that young, but if somebody else wants to, and they both consent to it, then let them fuck in peace. He didn't actually support "pedophilia". When he talked about Child Pornography, he didn't support it, he opposed legislation that used the "think of the children" excuse to control the internet.

He doesn't visit web sites [lwn.net]--instead, he sends email to a daemon that wgets the page and emails it back to him.//Most of the time he's on an airplane or some remote location and has no direct internet connection, also, he's old fashioned. He makes the most of his time, using just about every pause he gets to answer email. He gets his mail in daily batches, and it seemed useful to him to get websites he wants to look at in those same batches. Everything without even leaving emacs. Who cares? How does this relate to his political opinions?

Perhaps most infamously, he eats toe jam in public [youtube.com].//Who gives a fuck? Why do we care about this stuff regarding public figures? Let them fuck, eat and fart as much as they want, we should care about their performance in their actual field of expertise and nothing more.

He doesn't (didn't?) like Guantanamo either, it's still there. He didn't like retroactive immunity for the telcos for snooping either, it's still law.You need to look at his actions, not his well spoken words.If the law is bad in his opinion, it's his duty to veto it. If he signs it he agrees. No ifs, no buts no maybes.

I agree, but let's keep in mind that legislation is written by Congress, not the President. It seems to me that Congress needs to be held responsible for writing and passing the objectionable parts of the NDAA at least as much as the President is responsible for signing it.

If the law is bad in his opinion, it's his duty to veto it.

Agreed again, but note that the bill passed the Senate 86-13 and it passed the House 283-136, both of which are over the 2/3rds threshold for overriding a Presidential veto. Therefore a veto would not have been likely to prevent the bill from becoming law; it would simply have given Republicans a fresh club to beat the President with ("vetoed critical funding for Our Troops", "soft on terrorism", yada yada). Given that, I think Obama decided to cut his losses.

Hardly a profile in courage, I agree, but then again there is a point at which taking a principled stand starts to look an awful lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The reason Gitmo is still there is because the Republicans blocked his efforts to close it. He's not a dictator and he can't simply rule by fiat -- even though his critics like to accuse him of doing so.

The Republican game plan for the past several years has been to use the power of Congress to keep him from doing what he wanted to do, and then accuse him of lying when those things didn't get done. The fact that so many people are stupid enough to fall for it is astounding.

It's very very very little more complicated. He issued a statement specifically stating that he didn't like it, but then signed it in anyway. If no one stands up to "the f**ked up federal legislature", then it'll just continue to get worse.

I mean, yay, he says stuff I agree with (for the most part), but if he's not going to act on that, then it doesn't mean shit. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he's not even trying to hide the fact that he's not doing what he says. He might as well be fully supporting it because that's the end result - he'll be out of there in 1-5 years, and the decisions he's making will stick around long after that.

"The FBI, CIA, Federal Marshals, military, and all the other executive apparatus of the nation report to secretaries HE appoints (with fairly rubber-stamp Senate approval),"

That approval has been anything but rubber stamp these days. The GOP has used various procedural tricks to block nearly half of Obama's appointments, forcing several key agencies to be left leaderless for years.

"The Congress can't order Obama to keep Guantanamo open. But he could close it tomorrow if he wished."

Wrong. They added language to the NDAA stating that absolutely no money can be spent moving the detainees from Gitmo to other places. Since the prison can't close while there are people there, the prison can never close, and there's nothing Obama can do about it. Sure, he could try to veto the NDAA, but that would mean that the entire United States military would be forced to shut down. Can you imagine the campaign ads? The Democratic Senators sure can, which is why they would override his veto.

You need to understand, Obama doesn't say he thinks due process free detention statutes are a bad idea, he says that as President, he already has that power and Congress does not have the right to usurp it by passing a law. This is not an example of Obama displaying concern for civil liberties, it is an example of Obama asserting the philosophy of imperial presidency.

Because then the Republicans would run ads about how he vetoed a bill to provide health care to wounded soldiers, or body armor to troops on the front lines. And those ads would be technically truthful, since all those things are part of the bill. And the drooling masses that make up the majority of the American electorate would see those ads and be convinced, because most people are too lazy to do research.

Its amusing that the only time I hear this is from someone on the other side

Yea sure, red candidates can forget one of their three major campaign points, and that is ok, they are just human... Obama on the other hand misses a button on his coat and its the fucking focus of his incompetency on Fox New Radio for a week

Misses a button on his coat? Are you serious? Obama's term looks exactly like a GWB third term would look like. You may not want to believe it, but Obama's policies have been horrid and his record on human rights, heinous.

Yes, because Bush would have ended DADT, passed health care reform, banking reform and worked to close GITMO.

You do realize that it takes more than the President to decide that somethings going to happen for it to happen, right? Unless of course you're seriously suggesting that it's OK for him to just order the doors of GITMO thrown wide open and just allow the inmates to just go wherever they like without being tried.

To be fair, I don't think there have been any Tea Party protests where the cops have turned up and pepper-sprayed people for having the audacity to sit still - actually, have there been any Tea Party protests at all? I know they've had the odd rally, but I can't think of any actual protests.

Didn't the Tea Party bring guns to some place or other? I remember hearing about that somewhere on here. Or was that a./ myth?

Sure. In America, it is still legal to own guns and carry them in most public places (usually requiring a permit if the weapon is concealed). It may be important to note that of all the Tea Party rallies, no weapons were ever fired, or at least nobody was killed. Going out on a limb here, but I think terrorists usually use their guns to kill as many people as they can, so maybe the term "terrorist" is misapplied to Tea Party people. There were actually a few cases of rape and even murder among the Occupiers, but it's just as ridiculous to call them terrorists.

The Tea Parties carried guns, waved signs about "watering the tree of liberty with blood", and cheered for "second amendment solutions". To claim that they're nonviolent is absurd.

By contrast, crimes were committed at Occupy sites. Guess what? Crimes are committed wherever people are. You can't have a big crowd in one place for a long time and expect it to be crime free.

In one case, violent imagery is a part of who they are. In the other case, violent crimes happened where the protests were occurring, but had nothing to do with the protesters' message. It's a pretty important distinction, and one that many (biased) people like to overlook.

The war on terror is permanent. Al-Qaeda has no definite membership or identity. So anyone can be detained forever. Impossible to prove you are not linked to a largely imaginary organization even if the evidence against you wasn't classified. As for 1021e, I'm not a lawyer but it seems to protect police and federal agents from having to hand over people they've arrested to the military if they don't want to. The military already has the power to detain or kill Americans abroad, so a new law wouldn't be needed for that.